


She loved Victoria Sponges and Proper British Chocolates

by CotyCat82



Category: Agent Carter - Fandom, Captian America - Fandom, MCU
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Steggy Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-17 20:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CotyCat82/pseuds/CotyCat82
Summary: After defeating Thanos, Steve is once again the man out of time. As he returns to an Earth with a slightly different timeline thanks to the Infinity Stones, the only solace he can find is in the Great British Bake Off. It reminds him so much of Peggy. Then, the universe conspires to give him the second chance he deserves. A gift for steggyisimmortal for the 2017 Steggy Secret Santa Exchange.A big thanks to Indiefic for beta reading this! You are a gem.





	1. Batter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steggyisimmortal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steggyisimmortal/gifts).



> This is a gift for Steggyisimmortal, who loves the Great British Bake-Off, and wanted a happy ending and a date. I hope she likes it and has a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year.

_One Week Before Christmas_

Steve started watching the show because it reminded him of her. It was so thoroughly British, how could it not. Peggy would have loved the exacting nature of the challenges and the friendly competitive spirit between the contestants. Plus, Victoria Sponges had always been her favorite.  
  
After Wakanda and Thanos, after the Infinity Stones had literally flipped time upside down and inside out, watching the show each week was one of the few pleasures Steve had left. Natasha teased him mercilessly for it. Not for watching a baking program, but for rationing it out one episode at a time.  

“You’re missing the point of streaming television,” she’d told him, dropping his attempted Battenberg cake back on the plate with disgust. “Binge-watch it like a normal person and get it out of your system, Rogers, before you waste every ounce of flour in New York City.”

She made a show of touching her teeth as if to make sure they hadn’t been cracked on his homemade decorative doorstop. Steve knew he was a bad baker. And while he hoped to improve after each attempted recipe, that wasn’t why he did it. He rationed out the show weekly and tried to create simplified versions of what he saw on it as a comfort to himself. He—they—the Avengers had saved the world—the universe. Yet, he’d never felt so defeated.  
  
Thanos and his cronies had played with time during their attempted conquest and somehow muddled multiple dimensions and histories. Steve and the others had come home to a world with a slightly different past. People remembered converging timelines. Things—some slight, some not—had changed. After coming out of the ice, Steve had been the man out of time. He had only just felt like he had gotten his bearings when his legs had been kicked out from underneath him by the Infinity Stones.  
  
In the altered timeline, he was missing history again. Details and collective memories that others who’d lived through the times he slept under the ice were raised on, he was once more not privy to.  

The biggest, most painful of all, was Peggy. When everything was settled, he’d gone to her grave to lay some flowers and found that the tombstone was gone. He’d panicked. He’d raged. Nat, Sam and Bucky had to be called in to get control of him.  
  
In the new timeline, Peggy had died in 1951. She’d been the director of SHIELD, but she’d never married, never had children, never had dementia or died peacefully in her sleep. In the slightly altered timeline, Peggy Carter had ferreted out the corruption in SHIELD’s early days and tried to enact a plan to stop it. She single-handedly stopped Hydra from making another attempt at the Super Soldier serum, saving all of New York City in the process. They never recovered her body from the Dark Matter explosion, she somehow managed to contain.

In the world Steve returned to after stopping the Black Order, Peggy was an even bigger hero and legend that she had been before—more of a hero and symbol than even he had been. There was a statue of her in the lobby of SHIELD headquarters, and a glass case that held a red hat that she was known to favor. Steve was told, he should have remembered seeing them both there. The display went up in the 70s.  
  
One look at it and Steve made a point of going into the office as little as possible.    
  
Not that he had much need to. There were occasional clean-up jobs and some debriefings to check the converging timelines. These days, Steve mainly spent his time tinkering around the kitchen. It was easier to waste hours burning something, rather than deal with the fact he needed to decide what to do with the rest of his life—a life that could be unnaturally long thanks to the serum.  
  
He’d been wondering why his Chelsea buns looked like they’d been stepped on after pulling them from the oven, when he got the phone call.  
  
“Steve,” Pepper had said on speaker, as he waved frantically to move the smoke away from the fire alarm. “You need to get down to SHIELD headquarters as soon as possible.”  
  
Steve had a barrage of excuses ready to go, when Pepper added, “Steve, they found Director Carter. Alive.”

He dropped his oven mit. The smoke gathered around the ceiling and sounded the alarm.


	2. Chocolate

_Six Days Before Christmas_

  
She looked horrible. Then again, so did the guy outside who’d tried to prevent Steve from coming into the exam room.  
  
They found her in the same place she’d disappeared more than 70 years ago, with a vitaray gage and a small chip of an Infinity Stone beside her. A maintenance worker had gone to get a part to fix an overhead light in the lab and when he came back, there she was, just lying on the floor.

Steve knew it was her. He didn’t need the battery of tests—DNA, retinal, full body scan—to come back to confirm it. The woman in front of him was Peggy Carter. She was alive—and young. Steve did the math. If she disappeared in ‘51, they were about the same age. They’d lived the same number of years apart.  
  
He knew this was his Peggy, even before they’d gone through her things to try and verify her identity.  There’d been a framed photo of him inside her handbag. It was a picture of him taken pre-serum at Camp Leigh.  
  
Steve had a hell of a lot more life experience than he did when that photo was taken. He didn’t need to be told this was his second chance. Nor, did he hesitate in taking it. The doctors and nurses were forced to work around him when he parked himself on a stool by her bedside—one of her limp hands clutched in his.

From the looks of her, Peggy had been thrown heavily onto her left side. They laid her on her right as they examined her. Her face and head were fine, but she’d likely used her arm to take the impact. It was black and blue all over, as was her left leg. They were concerned that her hip bone might be broken or cracked, and had done an X-ray and MRI.

The medical staff had tried several times to wake her. She was completely unresponsive. But she was breathing. There was brain activity. The doctors assumed that she would wake up.

Once all the tests that proved Peggy was Peggy had come back, plans were made to move her to the largest and most comfortable recovery room that SHIELD had to offer. Rumors of her return that had been spreading, turned into fact. Half of SHIELD lingered in the hallway waiting for word on her condition. Maria finally had to bully, badger and threaten them all back to work.

It was just Sam and Nat waiting outside when they put Peggy on the gurney to be moved upstairs.

“What can we do, Cap?” Sam asked.

“SHIELD wants to make some kind of gesture, so she knows how much she means to all of us,” Nat clarified. “Flowers? Balloons? Candy?”

Steve’s mind jumped back to the GBBO episode he’d watched last week.  “She likes chocolate. It may be the only thing she likes more than Victoria Sponges.”

The image of Peggy spitting out a Hershey’s bar flashed in his mind. She had been desperate for chocolate during the worst of the rationing. Steve seldom traded on his Captain America persona, but he had used it to get that candy bar for her. She’d been delighted. He’d been delighted to put a smile on her face. But his fell into a frown, as he watched her take one bite and nearly retch.  
  
“Crickey O’Reily,” she’d explained, wiping at her mouth, “If that passes for chocolate in America, Steve, you have my deepest condolences.”

That Christmas, Peggy had given him a tin of chocolate covered Cadbury cookies. She called them biscuits and had attached a note that read, “proper chocolates for you, my darling.”

Peggy had been right, of course. She always was. The chocolates were vastly superior to anything he’d had before. He later learned, she had traded three pairs of good stockings to get them for him.

“Proper British chocolates,” Steve added following Peggy’s gurney to the elevator, “not the crap we sell here.”


	3. Pastry

_Four Days Before Christmas_

Steve shaved off his beard in Peggy’s private en-suite bathroom. He briefly considered taking the razor to his hair, but thought better of it. He had Nat cut it for him instead, asking her to make it look as close to the style he’d worn during the war as possible. As always, Nat proved to be a woman of many talents.

It wasn’t that he was trying to trick Peggy into thinking no time had passed, as Fury had done to him. (Although Fury tried to tell Steve that didn’t happen in this timeline. Steve didn’t believe him.) He just wanted to look recognizable to Peggy—attractive to her. He’d never been a vain man, but in his exile in Wakanda, he’d given up completely on the routine grooming that had been drilled into him in the army. But with Peggy, living and breathing, he was damn well going to trade in his sweats for a button-down shirt, and cut his too long hair.   

She’d yet to wake up, but she was starting to murmur things—words, phrases. And her specular bruising was gone—completely healed, unnaturally fast.

Peggy had been exposed to a high level of vitarays the doctors concluded. According to them, her DNA structure was the same, but her immune system seemed to be enhanced somehow between that and the Dark Matter. They theorized that part of the reason she was still asleep was because her body was using all its energy stores to heal itself. 

Steve hadn’t left Peggy’s room since she was moved into it. In the changes to the timeline, Peggy didn’t just have no immediate family, she had no extended family either. So, there was no one to question Steve as he stepped in and took the place of next of kin, making medical decisions on Peggy’s behalf. No one at SHIELD, even Fury himself, dared to override him.  

Sam, Nat, Pepper and Bucky seemed to be on some kind of rotating visiting schedule. One of them always popped by every few hours, ostensibly to check on Peggy, but no doubt to keep an eye on Steve as well. They were all sporting little band-aids on their arm. Everyone in SHIELD was. Once it was confirmed that their beloved, lost Director was alive, everyone from Fury on down had lined up to give blood in Peggy’s honor.

And, they’d filled the room with flowers and chocolates. There were candies, cookies, and chocolate cakes. There were dipped strawberries and fancy bonbons, and even a good number of homemade treats. Steve was doing his damnedest not to eat any of it. He wanted Peggy to see the overwhelming support and love her colleagues had for her.

So Steve tried to keep to the food that was being regularly brought to him from the cafeteria. It was pretty good. It had to be. Since in this timeline SHIELD was housed in Stark Towers, the food needed to be up to Tony’s standards. Steve had a wonderful croissant for breakfast and a spanakopita for lunch. Tony himself came by that afternoon carrying a caterer’s tray full of puffed dough appetizers and a bottle of champagne.

“Is there some kind of party going on in the building?” Steve asked biting into something flaky and full of butter.

Tony gave him an odd look, “Christmas is just a few days away, Rogers.”

“Oh,” Steve replied stupidly. In his isolation, it didn’t take much for him to lose track of time, or holidays that he didn’t particularly care to celebrate anymore.

“Speaking of which,” Pepper said, sliding into the room with several boxes and bags in hand. “These are our Christmas gifts for the Director.” Steve cleared a side table full of large flower arrangements so Pepper could set everything down. Looking at the packages, he saw the names of various clothing and shoe stores.

“Just some things to get her going,” Pepper commented.

“Thank you,” Steve said graciously.

“My pleasure,” Pepper said moving to stand by her husband. In this timeline, Tony had been smarter and married his great love. She picked one of the puff pastries off the tray he was still holding. “Delicious,” she declared.  

“Far better than anything you’ve ever made, Rogers,” Tony remarked, but then his face fell. They both remembered a timeline when there was bad blood between them, and one where there was not. Neither man knew how to be with each other now.  

“Undoubtedly,” Steve said good-naturedly. Now that Steve didn’t have to watch a version of Tony who had everything he didn’t, it was easier to recall the Tony who’d he’d never had a breach with.  

“Oh, are you learning to cook?” Pepper asked, clearly trying to keep an amiable conversation going.

“Bake, actually,” Steve clarified.  
  
“And how is that going?”

“I’ve yet to light anything on fire.”

“Yes, you have,” Tony noted.

“Alright, I have, but only the food. Not the kitchen itself.”

“I see,” Pepper replied neutrally. “Well, it’s a science, not an art as I understand it. I’d imagine if nothing else, you’d be good at decorating things, as an artist I mean.”

Steve found himself laughing, really laughing, for the first time in a long time. “You know, that’s the one damn thing I’ve yet to try my hand at.”


	4. Bread

_Three Day Before Christmas_

The universe may have found it in itself to give Peggy back to him, but it still clearly hated Steve on some intrinsic level. Since they’d found Peggy, he’d left her side for nothing more than to use the toilet and to shower. But of course, it was when he’d gotten up to take a leak that she had woken. He stepped out of her bathroom to find the bed empty.

It didn’t take much to track which way she’d gone. Steve just had to follow the trail of unconscious agents. He’d found her in the main lobby, standing in front of the statue of herself. SHIELD agents had gathered around, but were standing a respectful—and safe—distance from her. In the few minutes it had taken Steve to follow Peggy down the hallway, he noticed she now had both a gun and a heavy bar in her hands.  
  
She’s spoken quietly, but the cavernous nature and the silent awe in the lobby, made it reverberate when she said, “Dear Lord, what in God’s name is that thing?”

If she’d not been stunned stupid, Steve knew he’d never have been able to sneak up behind her like he did. He was just a few feet away from her, when he said, “Hello, Peggy.”

The bar she was holding hit the floor. She turned slowly to look at him. Her eyes went wide and her lower lip quivered, “Steve?”

“Yeah,” he said, his own voice cracking. Walking forward, he took the gun from her hand. She gave it over without resistance.

“Is this some kind of dream?”

“No. No, it’s not. Believe me, I couldn’t have dreamed up that monstrosity of a statue in my worst nightmare.”

Peggy laughed, even as tears started to flow down her checks. God, how Steve had missed that sound. He’d forgotten how it could buoy him in the worst moments of his self-doubt. She reached out to touch him as if to confirm he was real.

Her hand placed over his beating heart felt cold through his shirt. Steve realized that Peggy was barefoot. She was standing there is nothing but her paper-thin hospital gown. He wrapped his arm around her protectively, hiding her body with his own to preserve her modesty.

“Let’s go somewhere more private. It’s going to take a while to explain all of this.”

But Peggy didn’t move. She just stood there, tilting her head to stare up at him. “Steve,” she said after a long moment of searching his face.

“Yes, Peggy,” his voice was small and overwrought with emotion.

“I missed you so very much.”

That had done it. He started to cry, leaning his head on her shoulder—the only ones that had ever been strong enough to help him bear his burdens.

#

The doctors had wanted to examine her right away. Steve had nipped that in the bud, but Peggy insisted on being fed before they talked. Having experienced a hungry Peggy in the past, Steve sent for food right away.  
  
The kitchen sent a whole array of options up for her to pick from. Peggy seemed drawn to the challah bread that had been made for the holiday preparations. She buttered three pieces and sucked them down.

“I wouldn’t mind more of this, please,” she commented to the orderly, who’d been headed out the door. They brought up the entire loaf, which Peggy ate with relish. Smacking her lips, she wiped at her mouth delicately. It was completely in contrast to the way she’s just barely chewed the bread before swallowing.

“Okay,” she said, straightening up and steeling herself, “tell me.”

#

He told her about the ice. His lost time. The birth of the Avengers and the team ripping apart. She was heartened and then devastated to hear about Bucky. Steve told her about Thanos and the Infinity Stones, about fighting the Black Order, and how time and history had changed.

She was wide-eyed. She asked questions. But, she believed him.

#

She told him about the end of the war. How the SSR barely kept her on, but despite the maneuverings of someone named Jack Thompson, she’d ascended to the role of director of the newly formed SHIELD organization. Not because of Howard or Phillips, but because of her work as Agent 13.

“You should have seen the look on their face when they realized I was a woman.”

Steve beamed at her.

“But there was no undoing it once the announcement was made.”

“You earned it,” Steve told her assertively.

“Perhaps, I did,” she said with a hint of pride in her voice, “but it turned out to be nothing more than a set-up to fail.”

She told him about the Hydra infiltration and how she’d meant to stop it. About Whitney Frost and Dark Matter, and the rebar she’d taken through the stomach, the chip from the Tesseract and how Hydra planned to use it with vitarays, the last tube of his blood and Dark Matter to create an army of super soldiers. And, how she had stopped it all—how there had been an explosion that she’d kept isolated to the lead-lined lab.

“And then I woke up here. In the future somehow.”

Steve told her just what the Tesseract truly was, and how she was a hero and legacy. When she questioned that, he had all the chocolates and flowers to point to, her statue in the lobby, and the adoration of all of SHIELD, desperate to live up to her expectations of it.

#

There was no scar from the rebar now, or the bullets taken in her shoulder. They were gone, as was every mark on her body. The doctors would spend years surmising how Steve’s blood, Dark Matter, the sliver of the Infinity Stone, and vitarays exposure had combined to give Peggy serum like enhancements. And how all of those things combined had pulled her into the future.

Steve could have cared less as to the why and how. All that mattered to him was that Peggy was here with him and staying here with him. The one thing everyone agreed on was that altering the timeline again could be dangerous, and the last sliver of the stone needed to be destroyed. Immediately.

#

It was when Peggy started asking about specific people that doubt washed over Steve. She still had his picture. Peggy had still named her organization after his weapon. But she was Peggy. Objects circled around stars. How could someone like her possibly have been alone since he’d gone into the ice? Especially in this new timeline, where she was revered.

She asked about Jarvis and Ana first. Both gone, Steve had to tell her and watch as the tears welled in her eyes.  
  
It was hard to tell her that all the Commandos were gone too, but not as hard as telling her about Howard.  
  
There was a bittersweet moment when she asked about Angie Martinelli.

“The movie star?” Steve asked. He was missing a lot between the ice and the timeline shift, but even he knew who Angie Martinelli was.  
  
Peggy closed her eyes and smiled. “She made it, then. I’m so glad for her.”

When she fell silent, Steve just stared at her. “So, there wasn’t anyone….else who was special in your life?”

Peggy looked at him for a long moment. “No. Not since you.”

Before the stones—before Bucky and the ice—Steve would have hesitated, stuttered or not known what to do. Now, he leaned forward, his lips close to hers, but shy of a kiss. “There’s been no one since you either.”

“I see,” Peggy said, it was barely a whisper.

“Peggy?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“I’d like that very much.”

Steve had kissed Peggy before. Many times. There had been tender butterfly kisses and lingering touches when they had time. There were hurried stolen moments in supply closets when they did not. There had also been the rushed kiss before he’d hopped on the Valkyrie. It had been a shock to Steve because it happened in front of Phillips. The unspoken agreement had always been that no one could know about their relationship, which was forbidden during wartime.

This kiss wasn’t like any of the ones he shared with her before. The war had always left everything between them so uncertain. This kiss was very certain. It was a reunion with his best girl and the promise that she’d be his only girl. Ever and always.

#

Peggy slept and Peggy ate. Then, Peggy slept some more and then ate some more too—mostly bread. As the doctors tried to work out what had happened to her, they had all kind of theories as to why she was craving carbs.  
  
For his part, Steve just made sure there was tons of bread on hand. Sam and Wanda showed up with sourdough to introduce themselves. Tony and Pepper came with bread made with quail eggs and truffles. Nat and Bucky came with Ciabatta.

It was Bucky, of course, who told Peggy Steve was trying his hand at baking, and about The Great British Bake Off.

“Don’t eat anything he’s made, if you like your teeth,” he told Peggy, holding out his metal arm for her. They were going to take a walk around SHIELD’s interior gardens together to catch up. Alone. Steve watched them from a window briefly, before going to argue with the doctors about just how soon Peggy could be released. He had things settled by the time Bucky brought her back. She seemed tired, but in good spirits, as she gently chided Steve for not telling her it was nearly Christmas.

“I wish I had the stamina to go dancing with you, but I don’t think I’ll be well enough by Christmas to tear up the floor. I’m glad the doctors seem to think this exhaustion will pass. I’m not enjoying sleeping this much,” she said returning to her bed. She was nearly halfway out when she laid her head on the pillow.

“We can dance as soon as you’re fully recovered, but that doesn’t mean we can’t plan a date of another sort. How would you like to….”

Peggy was out like a light.


	5. Floral

_Christmas Eve_

“Dear God, Steve, tell me you didn’t make any of this!” Bucky said coming in with the potted plants.

“Ya know with friends like you….”

“Thank God for friends like me. When the love of your life pops through some kind of time rift, you count your blessing, Steve. You don’t try to poison her with your sad excuse for…..what exactly is all of this anyway?”

“Tea.”

“A proper British tea,” Pepper clarified breezing into the room, taking the plants from Bucky and arranging them just so. Once Steve had told her of his plans, she had jumped right in to help. In typical Pepper fashion, all Steve ultimately had to do was just show up. She’d taken care of everything else.  
  
Peggy had been released from SHIELD’s medical unit the day before and given a private apartment in one of Tony’s buildings. Although apartment didn’t quite capture the five bedroom, three bathroom unit that had its own pool and a freestanding greenhouse, where the tea-things had been laid out.  
  
Under Pepper’s supervision, it had been filled with roses, lavender, and lilac—-all the flowers that Steve associated with England. A quaint and comfortable table for two had been set and there was a full British tea laid out on a side table: scones with cream, cucumber finger sandwiches, bite-sized brownies, a Bakewell tart, macarons and, of course, a perfect Victoria Sponge.

Steve had made none of it.

“Peggy will be here in a second, so you and I better head out,” Pepper said, tapped Bucky on the arm.  
  
“Sleeping Beauty is actually awake?” Bucky questioned.

Steve had made the mistake of telling Bucky that when he brought Peggy to the apartment last night, he’d attempted a romantic evening. There had been a fire and soft music. They had decorated the tree together. Well, Steve had really just left a handful of ornaments off of it for them to place before he’d lifted Peggy up to put the star on top. Then he’d gone into the kitchen to get cookies and cocoa, hoping to snuggle under a blanket together. But when he came back, Peggy was passed out on the sofa, drooling on a pillow. Bucky thought that was hilarious.   

“Yes, in fact,” Pepper said. “She had I were just having a bit of a discussion over her dress.”

“What kind of discussion?” Steve asked.

“I didn’t want to wear red,” Peggy said, coming into the room. She was a vision in a flattering dress with a deep v-neck that showed off Peggy’s generous figure. But she was in blue, and Steve had hoped so much to see her in red. It was the only thing he’d asked Pepper for when she’d stepped in to help him.

He didn’t mean to be ungrateful, “But….”

“Red will be for our first dance darling,” Peggy said, stepping forward and kissing his cheek. “A tea date requires something a little softer.”

Still slightly disappointed, Steve was at least gratified to hear her comment on the setting. “It’s beautiful.”

She walked over to the table with the food and pulled the lid from the teapot, leaning over to take a whiff.  Closing her eyes, she smiled brightly at the scent. Bucky and Pepper took their leave before she opened her eyes again. She held out her hand to Steve. He led her to her chair and served her.

The conversation between them could have easily turned to business. Just that morning, a SHIELD agent had come by to start updating Peggy on all the time she’d missed. It was no secret that SHIELD wanted her back and was priming her to, once again, take on a leadership role. It was the dawn of a bright new world, who better to be leading SHIELD into it than their beloved founder?

But Peggy, one of the few people who truly understood him, talked about none of this. “So, tell me about this baking program of yours.”

Steve looked around at the beautiful and formal setting—the expensive tea things, likely older than both him and Peggy combined; the linen napkins; the hothouse flowers; the silver spoons—and realized that he truly wanted to have tea with Peggy, but not like this. This was Tony. This was Pepper, who he adored for always being so helpful. But this was not him, or Peggy. Even in the midst of their required professionalism during the war, things had never been ceremonial between them, but rather comfortable and warm. 

“I have a better idea. Let’s watch it together.”

They moved into the living room, carrying all the food and the teapot with them. Sitting on the sofa wrapped in the same blanket with nothing but the glow from the TV and the Christmas tree, they ate the Victoria Sponge off the platter. They’d got to work on the sandwiches and scones by the time the quarterfinals had begun. They chatted about the show and the contestants. They discussed the artistry of the showstoppers. Peggy made comments that indicated not just a knowledge of her homeland’s food, but that she knew how to make them.

“You bake?” Steve questioned, generally surprised. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her cook. The food, or what passed for it, had always been provided for them by the army.

“Why would that surprise you? It requires precision, accuracy, and a knowledge of certain applied principles. It’s not all that different than code breaking really.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at her.           

“My gran taught me,” Peggy said with a sigh. “It got my mum off my back as it seemed ladylike, but Gran would teach me to throw proper punches on the dough.”

Steve laughed.

Peggy added wistfully, “She used to make the most delicious Christmas cake.”

“I thought British Christmas cake was loaded with brandy.”

Peggy’s eyes twinkled. “They are. Why do you think I loved them so?” Sitting up and moving an empty platter from her lap, she said, “we should make one.”

“Now?”

“Why not? It’s Christmas Eve. Howard’s son didn’t fall far from the tree. There is no way there isn’t good brandy to be had here.”

“Probably, but I thought you had to make those cakes days in advance so they could soak in all the alcohol.”

“Yes, you are supposed to start in on them with plenty of time, but sometimes you simply don’t have the luxury of it. Sometimes, you have to make do with the time you are allotted. No matter how strangely, surreally or magically you find that you’ve been granted it.”

“Peggy—”

She kissed him, hard and long, tasting of tea and the promise of time.

#

Peggy had no problem finding Tony’s liquor cabinet. He didn’t even live in the building, but of course, Peggy’s apartment was fully stocked. Even as he couldn’t get drunk, Steve felt tipsy and giddy sharing the bottle with Peggy as they made the cake.

She couldn’t remember her grandmother’s recipe, so they’d had to look one up online. Then, they had to make some changes and substitutions because the kitchen wasn’t stocked with everything it required. Even so, Peggy clearly knew what the hell she was doing. The batter looked better than anything Steve had ever done on his own before.

The cake was just out of the oven when it struck midnight. 

“Happy Christmas,” Steve said, pointing at the clock, while Peggy licked icing off a spoon.  
  
“Happy Christmas,” she said leaning in to kiss him. This time, he got the sweetness of the brandy and the frosting.    


	6. Finale

_New Year’s Eve_

“Nat, I didn’t make them!” Steve exclaimed, knowing she’d deliberately gotten him in a huff and hated that he rose to the bait.

“But you just said…..”

“I said, I carved and decorated them. That’s it. I had nothing to do with their baking.”

“What about the frosting or fondant? You didn’t ruin those, did you?”

“Jesus!” Steve said, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration, “will you just….”

“Don’t have any then, if you are that concerned about it,” Peggy said, walking up behind them and slipping her arm through Steve’s. The diamond ring on her finger flashed in the soft light. “More for me that way.”

Peggy was in red tonight. Steve hadn’t asked her to be, but he was glad to see that’s what she’d opted for. She had worn it as promised when they’d gone dancing on their second date. On their third, when he’d proposed, she’d been in white. Red would always be his favorite color on her though. It was passion, love and Peggy.

“They look wonderful, darling,” Peggy said gesturing to the bride’s cake and the groom’s. One was shaped like his shield and the other like Peggy’s famous red hat. A hat that she had insisted be returned to her. It was sitting on her dresser now. Peggy intended to wear it when she came back into the SHIELD offices after the New Year, as their newly reinstated director.

“They certainly do,” Pepper commented, as she joined them. “Which is the chocolate truffle one again?”

“My hat is,” Peggy said, “It was my gran’s recipe. You’ll love it. Although, I’m sure the lemon mascarpone that Steve’s is made of is equally as good. It’s a new recipe.”

“You all are making me hungry,” Tony said, “Let’s not waste any time and cut the cakes.”

“They look amazing!” Wanda agreed, as she snapped a photo. “If you’re doing this for the engagement party, what are you doing for the wedding?”

“Do you know, we haven’t decided yet,” Peggy said, walking over to pick up a knife to cut the cakes. “We have some time to work that out though.”

“Not much,” Tony pointed out, “the wedding is in two weeks.”

“Which is too much time as far as I’m concerned,” Steve said whispering into Peggy’s ear, as he moved alongside her, putting his hand over hers on the knife.

They made sure everyone got a slice of each, before sharing a piece of both cakes between themselves. Peggy playfully put a bit of frosting on Steve’s nose. He retaliated by pulling her in for an eskimo kiss that smeared it across her face. She laughed, then reached for a napkin and a glass of champagne.

Midnight was still a few hours away, but Steve was giddy and love drunk. He made sure all his friends had glasses, and then raised a toast.  

“Thank you all for being here to ring in the New Year with us and to celebrate our engagement. It, you, mean the world to me…to us. I’m very thankful for all of you. To all of you…and, I just…..” He couldn’t find the words, so turned to Peggy.

She smiled, and with her usual ability to say what he couldn’t, finished for them both. “We just wanted to say Happy Christmas, have a wonderful New Year, and may your great blessing be never wasting or regretting the time you’ve been given.”

The group called out “cheers” and clicked their glasses. Not long after, the other guests, those not in the inner circle, started to arrive. Steve stuck by Peggy’s side throughout the party. He’ gotten his kiss at midnight and had three more pieces of each of the cakes.

Peggy could bake. He could decorate. They were truly each other’s right partner.

“What about a compass?” Peggy asked, leaning heavily against him as they waited for the elevator. She was slightly tipsy, but not sleepy for once. The festivities were showing no signs of slowing down, but Peggy had declared it a good idea if they rang in the rest of the New Year in the privacy of her apartment. Her wandering hands had made it clear to even Steve what she had meant, and he agreed that some time alone together was definitely in order.

“For the wedding cake?” she clarified.  

“What a wonderful idea!” he declared, patting his compass, still safely housed in his pocket. “We’ll make it look like mine, but with a photo of both of us. Together.”

“Perfect,” Peggy said, leaning further into him, but not from exhaustion. She was nipping playfully at his neck.

Before Steve lost the ability to think—or breathe—he prompted her in a serious tone. “Peg?”

“Yes, Steve,” she pulled back, looking up at him earnestly.

“I am really glad you are here. That we have this time together.”

“Oh, my darling, it’s the sweetest gift we’ll ever receive.”  


End file.
